‘the tunnel’: depressing, claustrophobic and now a terror target

NEW YORK — On a map, it is a vital artery for millions of commuters transferring from one subway line to another, a means of moving someone from deep in Queens to his job almost anywhere else in the city. But it is also, in person, just a tunnel, a particularly joyless and grim passageway even by New York City subway standards, wrapped by the sprawling Times Square station above and below. It is almost completely lacking in personality and identity; the police who patrol the station, when referring to the tunnel, call it “the tunnel.”

On Monday, this humble passage became the scene of a would-be suicide bomber’s attempted terror attack. It would seem an unlikely target and the very opposite of a high-profile, symbolic location in a city filled with them.

A visit to the tunnel as a destination, seeking clues to a motive, turned up the novelties within.

The tunnel, or an early version of it, opened in 1932 to a city of commuters eager for a way to pinch pennies. The subway fare was 10 cents, and the tunnel was billed as a way to spare the cost of transferring between subway lines in Times Square. “600-Foot Pedestrian Tunnel, Linking Subways, Opens Today,” an article in The New York Times announced, its writer dutifully describing the attributes of a tunnel: “The passageway is so constructed that it will be possible for pedestrians to make their way from the west side of Eighth Avenue to the east side of Broadway without coming to the surface.”

The tunnel, like the station that contains it, underwent renovations over the years, bringing it to its current state. It takes two minutes to walk from one end to another, a journey past a bright mosaic, a curious poem and exactly 42 advertisements for the new iPhone X.

The ceilings are low, striped with beams one could reach up and touch amid bare fluorescent bulbs. Paint has peeled away in thick chunks that dangle like gray leaves. Here, the transit system mounted a short poem intended to be read, looking up, in eight parts as one walks from Eighth to Seventh Avenue.

It was commissioned in 1991 as part of an Art for Transit program and was supposed to be temporary, but it remains more than a quarter of a century later. Its structure was inspired by midcentury Burma Shave advertisements that once lined roadways, its author, Norman B. Colp, said later. Its mood is in keeping with its setting.

The poem inspired two 20-year-olds to paper over the words in hopes of elevating spirits in the tunnel — “so tired,” for example, became “energized.” The Metropolitan Transportation Authority was not amused; workers quickly removed the paper.

The tunnel is elevated above the parts of the station it connects, and at either end is a steep downward ramp. It is so steep that it is not considered accessible to the very people who seek out ramps in public places — the handicapped. “This ramp not wheelchair accessible,” signs read on either end.

The tunnel squeezes together thousands upon thousands of humans moving from one borough to another. Traffic lanes are as rigid as those on an interstate highway. When it is crowded, as is often the case, it becomes impossible to get around the person in front, and one simply goes with the flow, left to ponder, over and over, the idea of buying the newest iPhone.

It can be a claustrophobic experience.

“I feel like it’s very tight and there’s so many people,” said Laura Garcia, 19, a student at John Jay College on her way home to Flushing.

This would seem to make the tunnel a smart place to put a newsstand, with so many potential customers passing by. But not many stop, perhaps fearing being trampled.

“Slow,” said Halim Miah, 52, working the stand Tuesday morning. “All day, slow.”

On the wall opposite the phone ads, glass mosaics of happy people are set into the tunnel’s marble tiles. They are part of an installation created in 2008 and titled “The Revelers” by Jane Dickson. The mosaics depict people dressed for winter and blowing into noisemakers, probably on their way to or from watching the ball drop on the street above the tunnel on New Year’s Eve.

The suspect in Monday’s attempted bombing, Akayed Ullah, 27, told investigators he chose the tunnel because of its holiday décor — “The Revelers”? — and timed it for a workday, when the subways would be busy, according to a criminal complaint. Grainy video of the explosion shows, by the tunnel’s standards, few people nearby. The device did not work properly, dulling its impact, the police said. Had it occurred an hour or so later, and had it worked correctly, the bomb could have been “much, much worse,” said John Miller, the New York Police Department’s commissioner of intelligence and counterterrorism.

The tunnel was more or less back to normal Tuesday morning, the crowds streaming through, but for several police officers and reporters milling among the commuters. Some people, asked to comment about the events of the previous day, declined with a brusque shake of the head. They had places to be.